As I probably don't need to tell you, The Winds of Winter is the long-in-coming sixth book in author George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, adapted by HBO as Game of Thrones. Martin has been working on this thing for 13 years, ever since A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011. To say fans are starved for updates is a vast understatement. We'll take anything we can get, which is why a clip from a new episode of the Bend the Knee podcast quickly spread among the fan community.
On the podcast, host Jimmy Nutts talked about something that author Shawn Speakman said at Dragonsteel Nexus, a literary event put together by Stormlight Archive author Brandon Sanderson; the latest gathering was held earlier this month. Speakman is the author of The Antiquity Chronicles series, the operator of Grim Oak Press, and someone who works with fantasy author Terry Brooks, known for his Shannara Chronicles series. He has connections in the publishing industry, which is why fans perk up when he says something about George R.R. Martin and The Winds of Winter. When it comes from someone with authority, it might just be true.
Anyway, at Dragonsteel, Speakman allegedly gave his take on the status of The Winds of Winter. "So I try to respect George's space and not ask him directly," he's quoted as saying. "But I know how many pages have been sent to Harper Voyager. I know how many pages he's roughly gotten completed otherwise. I talk to his editor Anne Groell probably monthly. And I know how many pages they can physically put in a book. And he is either at that amount or nearly. So its more about whether they will convince him to split Winds of Winter or if he will hold out for the ending that he was been wanting to do."
So basically, Speakman is saying that Martin may have written too many pages of The Winds of Winter for them to fit in one book. In theory, that could lead to a repeat of what happened with the last two books in his series: A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons. Originally, they were meant to be one book, but Martin wrote so much that he and his publisher opted to release them as separate volumes instead.
We don't know exactly how many pages Martin has written, but we know it's a lot. Even the advance chapters of Winds already released add up to a good chunk of story. And Martin himself has basically admitted that his publishers have suggested the idea of splitting the book up, writing in a 2018 blog post that he was "resisting" the notion. Should we take Speakman's secondhand account as evidence that it might happen anyway?
Well, no we shouldn't, because after this rumor started to spread on Reddit Speakman himself stepped into clarify things. "My information is purely speculative based on the amount of manuscript pages George has said (on his Not a Blog, on Colbert Show, etc.) he’s completed and how many pages a book can physical contain within a binding," the author clarified in a thread on the topic. "I have not spoken to George in at least two years. And while I talk to his editor fairly often due to my work with Terry Brooks, we rarely discuss George and how his writing is going."
Speakman said that while he admires the "enthusiasm" of the Bend the Knee host, "he took my words and meaning out of context. And if I knew something beyond what I said above, I certainly would never share it as it is not my news to reveal. Hope this clears up the confusion."
So there you go: it sounds like Speakman really did say something about The Winds of Winter at Dragonsteel, but it fell well short of a declarative statement about how the book will (or will not) be published. He only knows a bit more than us, and we don't know nearly enough.
Ultimately, only Martin knows what's going to happen with The Winds of Winter, and he's said many times that he'll share the good news on his Not a Blog when it's time. As for when that might be, we can only guess. In the meanwhile, if you'd like to sink your teeth into an entirely different doorstopper of an epic fantasy series, Brandon Sanderson has a new book out you might enjoy:
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